Can somebody strip you of self-confidence in a non-obvious, subtle way?

[comfortablyum]

A friend of mine who used to be self-confident seems a lot more withdrawn than she used to be. Her husband doesn't seem overtly nasty, and I don't think he is violent, but he 'talks over her' a lot, and seems dismissive of her.
For example, I was around their house and the three of us wanted to watch something via i-player. My friend searched the iplayer site for the programme, but instead of taking her word for it, her dh insisted on searching for it himself.
This seems really trivial in itself, I know, but still.

hmmm this thread is giving me food for thought. First thing that springs to mind is a lot of DH saying 'Silly mummy', 'naughty mummy' etc in front of the kids, done in a jokey way so it's hard to react against without looking all po faced and probably stupid of me to find it hurtful but I do.

.. first of many examples I could give.

One for me was us being on holiday, just DP and me, we were looking over the balcony and he commented on someone being so skinny. I asked him what he preferred and he pointed to me and said "Not that", well, when I challenged him he told me I was being "silly" and he didn't mean it

Everything i did needed "fixing" again because silly me i just never got it right.

If I ever really challenged him I was "Mad".

A particular ex used to criticise my skin care regime, hated me wearing bright colours, tell me I had 'scary eyes' when I was just tired, didn't listen to me, told me my lipstick matched my spots (bastard).

I ditched the mofo and felt much better.

its hard when you feel like everything you say is geting picked over and criticised, or yawned at, or met with sighing and rolling of eyes. Makes you start to wonder about yourself.

Miss F that holiday one is horrid! x

He sounds great, Sunny. Who the fuck criticises a skin care regime?? I can imagine your choice of moisturiser had a profound impact on his life.

Oh yes it is that ANun but I'm chuckling here remembering how ridiculous he looked on the beech in his "budgy smugglers"

Miss F ha at Budgy smugglers its making me chuckle too and I didnt even have the pleasure of seeing him!

Oh yes Anun it was a sight to behold that's for sure. The last time I saw him he'd ordered a bike and all the lycra you could possibly imagine to go with it

He's past his half centry by the way what a sizzler.

He sounds like a catch! Can't believe you let that one go!
Thanks for cheering me up !

I'm so glad I cheered you up Anun. A tip that I learned from these wonderful wise women on here is step back and watch these twunty bullies for a while, it's a real eye opener, once you do that you will see what fools they really are.

Thanks for the tip, will try to give it a go

Read a lot too. My abuse was nothing compared to some on here. A fab book I got was "why does he do that" by Lundy Bancroft, I personally never believed in these "books" but it really does help slot stuff into place, especially when the abuse is in a trickle fashion that you can't describe. It's what I call countless "side swipes" therefore very very hard to voice. I'm quite a strong character and every single person I tried to tell poo pooed what I said due to him being very controlled and nice outwardly and them never ever thinking I would be in that position.

I eventually had to believe in "ME".

Thanks miss f. I used to feel like I was a strong person who spoke my mind but now I can't bring myself to say anything. Don't know what I'm scared of, its daft really, guess I don't trust my judgement/ feelings anymore? Doesn't help that I'm in a fog of sleep deprivation due to having a baby and toddler. Will check out the book too thanks again x